If you tune in the Miss America pageant Saturday night and think you see some familiar faces when the camera pans the audience, don’t bother rubbing your eyes.

In the crowd of thousands in Las Vegas will be hundreds of Miss Kentucky’s closest friends – and more than 40 of that group will be from Shelby County.

That’s because Ann-Blair Thornton, 21, a student at Western Kentucky, is wearing the banner of the bluegrass this week, and she’s the granddaughter of Bill and Ann Borders, longtime residents of Shelbyville.

Both are media spokespersons for high profile government offices, the governor and the attorney general, respectively.

Both are dedicated, driven professionals in their fields.

Both are also Shelby County residents.

Richardson, communications director for Gov. Steve Beshear, and Johnson, deputy communications director for Attorney General Jack Conway, say they have always gotten along well when their paths have crossed professionally from time to time.

The Sentinel-Newssince 2008 has honored at year’s end five Shelby Countians we think have had a significant impact on our community during this year. For the first time, we asked for your nominations on our Facebook page, and we believe each person selected for what we call Shelby County’s Fabulous 5 has in his or her own way left an imprint that merits our honoring and emulating, represents a broad spectrum of a diverse society and truly is one of the best of our best.

Tom and Ruth Hodge own both Its Convenient stores located on U.S. 60, and for the past few decades, they have been known for their efforts in treating their customers like family.

The Hodges make it a point to help out people in need in the community, and their most recent effort was collecting thousands of dollars for Bill Pearson, an elderly man who lost his home on Henry Clay Street in a fire that killed his brother.

Gary Walls is a man with a mission: Nothing too big, just working to raise thousands of dollars to help people change their lives, that’s all.

Walls is the co-founder and past president of Shelby County Community Charities, an organization that he and some others started in 1996 to raise money for families who have children or young adults in serious need of surgeries they can’t afford.

Searching far and wide – from the knobs to the horse farms, from Pleasureville to Finchville – and soliciting suggestions from readers, we've boiled down the biggest Christmas trees in the county to two.

Why two?

Well, a real and a fake, of course.

Just east of Simpsonville sits Al Smith's spread on the corner of Fields Lane and U.S. 60. Although probably more famous for the giant arrow (made from a telephone pole) that adorns his yard, Smith always drapes his flag pole in lights, forming a towering, 40-foot tall cascade of lights.

The weather wasn’t quite delightful, but neither was it frightful Saturday at the Christmas Parade, an event that had a specific theme this year.

Touted as the Red, White and Blue American Christmas, the parade down Main Street featured 20 floats, up a few from last year, many of which featured patriotic themes, a couple of them depicting Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001.